Approaches to poverty reduction in towns and cities of the Global South

How is urban poverty reduction understood by those seeking to act on it? This chapter reviews eight approaches to urban poverty reduction from a range of sectors and related disciplines. These are summarised in Box 2.1. Box 2.1 Different approaches to poverty reduction State Directed

Welfare assistance to those with inadequate incomes; usually takes the form of income supplements and/or free or lower-cost access to certain goods and services. Universal access to health care and schools is also a characteristic of a ‘welfare-state’.

Urban management to improve ‘local government’ with a focus on efficiency, technical competence, a stronger fiscal base and implementing local regulations to get effective planning and land-use management, and to address the inadequacies in basic infrastructure and services.

Participatory governance includes greater accountability, transparency, and scope for citizen and community participation – i.e. improved processes of democratic government to ensure that urban governments are more responsive to the needs and interests of low-income and disadvantaged citizens. Its scale and effectiveness may increase through co-production where state support for community action is added.

Rights-based approaches that extend rights and entitlements to those who lack these – and that usually focus on low-income groups and those living in informal settlements.

Market Based

Market-based approaches that seek to support higher incomes and livelihoods through access to financial markets and to support infrastructure and service provision or improvement that recovers costs.

Social Movement Based

Social and urban movements supported because of their representation of urban poor groups and their capacities to negotiate pro-poor political change.

Working Within the Status Quo

Aided self-help with support to households and community groups to address their own needs – for instance, through bulk supplies, equipment loan, technical assistance and loans.

Clientelism: in many urban centres, despite the negative connotations of clientelism, this does provide an avenue for low-income disadvantaged citizens to access state services, albeit within vertical relationships that are often exploitative and that provide only limited support for some.